Cheat Codes

So when working on my latest project I had a bunch of flags inside that I could set on and off to test content and the such. I was thinking I could link them to user input and make them into cheat codes.

I was wondering what everyones opinion on cheat codes are? Do they take away from the game? Do they add content time after you have played it out? Should cheat codes be published in the manuals/website or let users discover them?

Good use of cheats can extend the life of your game. A good example of this would be from goldeneye. Each cheat had to be earned by completing special tasks in the game, thus lengthening the playtime. In my opinion, cheats should only be unlocked after the player has completed a substantial amount of the quest. That way it doesn't detract from the play experience but does add to the overall package when they finish. And depending on the game, cheats can be very imaginative too.

Cheats rock, there are some games that story wise are great to go through, but re-play wise are annoying.

Take Jazz JackRabbit for example, my daughter at the age of 3 and 4 can only get so far before the game is just too damn hard, but give her unlimited ammo, and invincibility and she's just jumping around blasting things for hours. Now that she can read, she is punching in the cheats in all on her own, woopee!

Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter on the other hand has cheats that are impossible to enter, you need a cheat just to move your fingers fast enough to enter the cheat, and replaying some space fight scenes over and over are just annoying.

Cheats=good.
Time based game play limit = bad.

One thing to remember, test your cheats thoroughly, crazy game breaking bugs can happen. Its probably best to enable the cheats after a revision or two.

most people i know ( including me ) agree with me that GTA 1, 2 etc are the most fun WITH cheats, but usually the best thing would be to have the players unlock cheats as they go, maybe just fun ones, like in the sims ( ok bad game example xD ) where you could give everyone huge heads, thats fun. I would have to agree that cheats can potentially lengthen gameplay if used ( after it's completed! )

On the flip side, cheats also ruin the game considerably. I have alot of friends who own ps2's and GTA:san andreas and alot of them cheated their way past the hard parts and then got bored and never finished the game.

skrew Wrote:On the flip side, cheats also ruin the game considerably. I have alot of friends who own ps2's and GTA:san andreas and alot of them cheated their way past the hard parts and then got bored and never finished the game.

That is important to note, therefore I'm more of a unlocking special content (which can be cheats) then typing some weird characters in a console.

Also, cheats that feels like they add something to the game, not just make it easier. Like in Perfect Dark, where some "cheats" made it harder (altought the majority made it easier, but some of those cheats was so hard to unlock you felt you needed the cheat to unlock it) and some cheats was just plain weird.

Sorry if the typing is weird, haven't slept for quite some time.

"Gameplay Uber Alles. And if you can make it psychedelic too, great!" - Jeff Minter

I always liked how some games would allow you to cheat for a specific interval of the game, then send you back requiring you to do it without cheating. This way you can, if stuck, go through cheating to try to figure out how you'd go about it without cheating.

+1 for unlockable interesting cheats. say...if the player successfully survives a level where little or no ammo is purposefully made available, they get an unlimited ammo cheat. Or better yet, cinematic ammo Clips (never have to reaload every 10 bullets or whatev)

I have to agree that cheats in sandboxes like GTA are somewhat detrimental to gameplay, although borderline necessary for getting 100% completion ratings.